To James Madison from Stephen Moylan, 11 December 1799
From Stephen Moylan
Phila. Decemr. 11th 1799
Sir
The lease I have of your house terminates the 2nd of May next, Mr Sansom & others have built I believe 23 houses on the back of the lot where Mr Morris had built his large house, the rent of them is 200 dollars a year, they are in the modern taste.1 If you will accept that rent for the house I live in, I will not quit it. I give you this early notice, that your agent here, may be on the look for a tenant if my offer is not approved of by you.
I have paid the taxes for 1798 & of this year, which will be substracted [sic] from the rent due to you when Called for. I am respectfully Sir your obedt. sert
Stephen Moylan
RC (DLC).
1. William Sansom, a Quaker philanthropist, built a row of houses between Seventh and Eighth streets on the north side of Walnut Street. Sansom’s Union Row, as it came to be called, along with similar construction across the street built by Thomas Carstairs, set the pattern in the U.S. for the elegant “Philadelphia row” (Russell F. Weigley, ed., Philadelphia: A 300-Year History [New York, 1982], p. 251).